Richism: The Self-Righteous Bigotry of the Wall Street Protestors

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I made a semi-long post about how the left infiltrated academia, indoctrinated the kids, got well paid for it, and got to blame the cost on the banks with the brainwashed kids protesting, but decided it was good enough for a new thread.

So I moved it to here: Tuition Bubble - What a Scam.

Michael

[bmacwilliam]

Well, maybe I own piece of land that becomes or just is strategically important for military defence. I don't like having my property rights violated, but the right thing to do could be to violate my rights to protect others no? Sure, this shouldn't be able to happen arbitrarily and without compensation (perhaps higher than market value), but I could certainly see where the balance of rights protection (life/property) for others outweighs my individual property rights.

Where do you draw the line?

In my approach I don't think in any such terms so I don't need to draw pragmatic lines. E.g., I don't consider it violating a homeowners property rights to save a hostage inside; I consider the hostage taker to be the rights violator in that scenario and my efforts to save the hostage, so long as they don't go beyond what is reasonable and necessary, are extensions of the rights-violating action of the perpetrator of the crime.

Now I get it....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophasia

[Brant Gaede]

Well, maybe I own piece of land that becomes or just is strategically important for military defence. I don't like having my property rights violated, but the right thing to do could be to violate my rights to protect others no? Sure, this shouldn't be able to happen arbitrarily and without compensation (perhaps higher than market value), but I could certainly see where the balance of rights protection (life/property) for others outweighs my individual property rights.

Where do you draw the line?

In my approach I don't think in any such terms so I don't need to draw pragmatic lines. E.g., I don't consider it violating a homeowners property rights to save a hostage inside; I consider the hostage taker to be the rights violator in that scenario and my efforts to save the hostage, so long as they don't go beyond what is reasonable and necessary, are extensions of the rights-violating action of the perpetrator of the crime.

Now I get it....

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Schizophasia

You guys are funny.

--Brant

[sjw]

Police infiltrate OWS in order to make protesters look bad:

http://www.observer.com/2011/10/citibank-protester-talks-about-undercover-infiltration-in-occupy-wall-street

Agent provocateur: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_provocateur

Shayne

[Selene]

Charming folks...selective Constitutional rights!

http://michaelgraham.com/archives/the-occupods-approach-to-first-amendment-sic-dogs-on-reporters/

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

If anyone wants to see infiltration, just go to the comments section of any article on The Blaze.

You read people making outright racist and bigoted statements (before the posts are deleted). And many of the ones that stay sound like Hollywood caricatures of crackers.

I've been to Beck things. The people I encountered are nothing like that. These are people who grouped 1/2 million strong at the Restoring Honor Rally and left where they stood in Washington DC cleaner than what they found it when they arrived. When an infiltrator is perceived at these kinds of events, smaller scale, of course, and including Tea Party rallies, I have seen the general people expose him and start praying for him and asking him to reconsider what he is doing.

I think The Blaze administrators let it rip because the only alternative is to cut the comments altogether. Soros money buys a lot of trolls.

So far with OWS people, there is lack of hygiene, theft, sex on the streets, one reported case of rape so far, antisemitism, arrests galore, and so on.

I hardly think all of that misbehavior is due to infiltrators.

Michael

[George H. Smith]

Not great, but amusing....

#!

Ghs

[sjw]

Speaking of pragmatists:

http://the-diplomat....80%99s-tragedy/

(The analysis there is a bit deranged, but on the right track. It's not altruism, but principle that is the matter at issue).

Shayne

[bmacwilliam]

Helping the child is morally neutral for Rand.

Rand:

"The fact that a man has no claim on others (i.e., that it is not their moral duty to help him and that he cannot demand their help as his right) does not preclude or prohibit good will among men and does not make it immoral to offer or to accept voluntary, non-sacrificial assistance."

Rand's wonderful principle doesn't morally forbid the woman to help (well unless it was dangerous to do so). How nice. Great principle...

But this the fault of pragmatism. I see.

Looks a helluva lot more like an example of a result of a Randian-type principle to me.

Bob

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Now on to Occupy Canada!

<iframe title="MRC TV video player" width="640" height="360" src="http://www.mrctv.org/embed/106722" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Original link here: Occupy Toronto "This Man Was in my Tent Sniffing my Girlfriend’s Feet”

I wonder if this foot-sniffer is an infiltrator.

Michael

[Selene]

Folks:

This is interesting. The marxist chickens are coming home to ROOOST [hat tip to Reverend Wright and extreme apologies to Malcom X aka Detroit Red]

http://mrctv.org/vid...they-must-leave <<<<Oakland California's idiot mayoress and city council serves vacate order!

Here, http://mrctv.org/vid...occupy-movement , the crowd at Occupy San Diego has a mixed reaction to a Tea Party speaker whom/who they granted the request to speak for seven (7) minutes.

Finally, the original infection at Liberty Park is in negotiation with the Downtown Community Planning Board in Manhattan and there are seven issues that have been "agenderized" [new word] after last nights Planning Board reaction meeting.

After a meeting this afternoon with the NY City Councilpersonthingy Chin, looks like the dispute resolution techniques that are espoused by OWS are not doing too well.

After hosting a meeting between protesters and residents Friday afternoon, City Councilwoman Margaret Chin said she is losing faith that the protesters will be able to address

residents' concerns about noise, garbage and safety in Zuccotti Park

, where Occupy Wall Street has been camped out for the past month.

"Despite seven meetings with the community board, a 'Good Neighbor Policy' and a meeting with [Occupy Wall Street] to discuss the enforcement of that policy, nothing has changed in Zuccotti Park," Chin said in a statement to DNAinfo Monday.

Read more: http://www.dnainfo.c...y#ixzz1bRyM9XXE

Of course, what is not being openly discussed is that there is no negotiation possible with a group that has no structure:

Part of the problem is that Occupy Wall Street prides itself on being a leaderless movement, with a horizontal governance structure in which committees tackle issues independently and then report back to the consensus-based General Assembly.

That structure makes it difficult for any one representative to negotiate an agreement on behalf of the whole, and there are often conflicts between what one representative of the group says at one meeting and what another says the following day.

Ro Sheffe, chairman of

Community Board 1

's Financial District Committee, who has met with the protesters many times, said he is starting to believe that negotiating with them is futile.

Less[OWS "negotiator"] reminded people at Monday night's General Assembly to read the Good Neighbor Policy.

"Do not pee or poop in public doorways," Less told them. "I cannot overemphasize how emergent and urgent this situation is. We are under major attack by City Council people and the community boards. It's going to take everybody to watch noise and sanitation."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg expressed sympathy for the residents' concerns on Monday, telling reporters that there was a fine line between giving people the right to protest and preventing others from being taken hostage by those demonstrations.

So, essentially, Nanny Mayor Dumbberg is ok with rats, refuse and radical bathroom techniques as long as there are no trans fats, cigarettes and salt in the park.

Adam

the riots that they want are soon to appear

[Selene]

Infuriated lower Manhattan residents went ballistic on Zuccotti Park protesters at a chaotic Community Board 1 meeting tonight while blasting politicians for allowing the siege to continue without any end in sight.

"They are defecating on our doorsteps," fumed Catherine Hughes, a member of Community Board 1 and a stay at home mom who has the misfortune of living one block from the chaos. "A lot of people are very frustrated. A lot of people are concerned about the safety of our kids."

Fed up homeowners said that they've been subjected to insults and harassment as they trek to their jobs each morning. "The protesters taunt people who are on their way to work," said James Fernandez, 51, whose apartment overlooks the park.

William Miller

Local resident Gordon Crovitz disagrees with representatives of OWS at a Community Board 1 meeting regarding the Good Neighbor policy between the Occupy Wall Street protesters and local residents.

Board member Paul Cantor said that residents are fed up with the incessant racket that emanates from the protest at all hours. "It's mostly a noise issue," he said. If people can't sleep and children can't sleep because the protesters are banging drums then that's a problem."

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/angry_manhattan_residents_lambast_RjpTU0jG2z9yrgf5o4bRcO#ixzz1bS4O1elc

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/angry_manhattan_residents_lambast_RjpTU0jG2z9yrgf5o4bRcO?utm_campaign=OutbrainA&utm_source=OutbrainArticlepages&obref=obinsource

[sjw]

http://www.corporations.org/media/

[john42t]

I have mixed reactions to this topic.

Like Dennis I have noticed, not just with some OWS people but with culture in general, a significant level of prejudice about people with certain amounts of money (basically, assumptions are made about their character on the basis of their bank balance). These stereotypes indeed have at least some Marxist roots.

On the other hand, Shayne is correct; not all OWS people are saying "you're evil because you're rich." Quite a few are saying "you're evil because of how you got rich (i.e. raiding the public purse and benefitting from corporatism)."

Picking out the very worst examples of any movement and claiming this to be the "essential" characteristic of the movement is a bad habit which some Objectivists cultivate.

To me, a ~relevant~ bad habit, is the tendency of too many libertarians to crawl in bed, based on a non-essential common value, with those who want to destroy the basic values libertarians hold dear.

It's all well and good to hate the way ~some~ people became rich. But to make common cause with those who hate ~all~ rich people, regardless of how they became rich, is not going to accomplish anything of value, and in fact is aiding and abetting those who want to destroy what freedom we have left.

The enemy is not rich people. It is statism and it is those looters (government officials) who want to hand out privileges and taxpayer dollars to parasites, whether rich or poor. It's not fashionable to bad-mouth the non-rich moochers, but anyone who doesn't want to shoot himself and liberty in the foot needs to take on these people, too.

I disagree strongly.

The enemy isn't the looters/moochers/statists, the enemy is the irrational ideologies that are their power base.

That's why I also disagree with Shayne's view that fascism/corporatism is a problem. It's not, it's a symptom.

The problem is the do-gooder teacher in public schools, the mother who teaches her children to "be good", the professors who come up with one irrational piece of crap after another explaining why we should all be ashamed of ourselves and should stop trying.

*Those* are the enemy. Obama, corporate leaders, corrupt bureaucrats, they are symptoms.

Tell every kid on this planet that their parents are merely playing a con game on them to look good to others, tell them that schools are designed to prevent them from earning more than their teachers ever could, tell them that professors are losers who couldn't get a real job, tell them that Bill Gates doesn't help the poor because he's good, but because he's no longer good.

And all of the rest is going to disappear.

[Selene]

John:

That is a very intriguing line of argument. Essentially true to Ayn's core cultural and individual arguments.

Adam

[sjw]

One irrational ideology is the one that supports the patent system. Whoops.

The root issue is: individual rights vs. various forms of attacks on them. I've never claimed that fascism/corporatism exhausts the set of rights-violating ideologies. But if you are talk about Objectivism, then it's natural to talk about one of its biggest blind spots a bit more than you'd talk about the things it gets right.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

http://www.corporations.org/media/

Wow! This is really scary. Maybe someday someone will invent a computer network system -- we could call it the "Internet" -- that will create highly decentralized sources of information. This may seem like a pipe-dream now, but we can always hope.

Ghs

[Selene]

Listen to the inability of the woman to 1) listen to what he said; and 2) be able to respond to his points.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/10/26/peter_schiff_takes_on_occupy_wall_street_protesters.html

[sjw]

Wow! This is really scary. Maybe someday someone will invent a computer network system -- we could call it the "Internet" -- that will create highly decentralized sources of information. This may seem like a pipe-dream now, but we can always hope.

Translation: Fascism is A-OK, we have the internet!

The issue here isn't whether there are alternatives (and besides, "the internet" does not replace a professional journalism staff); the important matter is: what is causing the reductions in alternatives? Note that the trend started long before the internet, so that's not the cause.

It is easy to discern fascist trends underlying the reduction, ergo it is a reasonable assumption that things like fiat money, political manipulation of media outlets, regulations, out of proportion liabilities, etc. are causing this, and that's not a good thing.

I would think that an individualist would not like the fact that journalists are being corralled like this, so I don't understand George's response. He's evidently extremely naive.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

The issue here isn't whether there are alternatives (and besides, "the internet" does not replace a professional journalism staff); the important matter is: what is causing the reductions in alternatives?

Yeah, like you would know.

Note that the trend started long before the internet, so that's not the cause. It is easy to discern fascist trends underlying the reduction, ergo it is a reasonable assumption that things like fiat money, political manipulation of media outlets, regulations, out of proportion liabilities, etc. are causing this, and that's not a good thing.

"Fascism" serves the same function for you that "sin" serves for Christians. It explains everything that you don't like. The concentration of media outlets into fewer hands means nothing per se.

Ghs

[sjw]

Subtracting out George's empty-headed ad hominems, let's see what substance he has to add:

The concentration of media outlets into fewer hands means nothing per se.

True. But concomitant rights-violating government forces that would be expected to result in the concentration adds the meaning. You are ignorant (or willfully evasive?) of these concomitant forces, ergo you get no meaning.

You lack vision and imagination George. You're also a bit dogmatic, which makes you immune from learning new ideas from others. In combination, these are particularly bad traits.

Shayne

[sjw]

I think part of why George lacks imagination is that he happened to choose a line of work that does not require intensive interaction with laws and regulations. If you are truly creative and choose from a variety of fields outside of writing or other media, you rapidly bump into government interference. Your preferred business plan may well be impossible, or too risky for you personally, given the legal context. George has never in his life had to suffer from any of this to a great degree, so it's easy for him to sit back and be dogmatic when I try to point out the problems. He blames the victim.

Shame on you George.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

Subtracting out George's empty-headed ad hominems, let's see what substance he has to add:

The concentration of media outlets into fewer hands means nothing per se.

True. But concomitant rights-violating government forces that would be expected to result in the concentration adds the meaning. You are ignorant (or willfully evasive?) of these concomitant forces, ergo you get no meaning. You lack vision and imagination George. You're also a bit dogmatic, which makes you immune from learning new ideas from others. In combination, these are particularly bad traits. Shayne

You have a theory, vague as it is. Now all you need are some facts.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

I think part of why George lacks imagination is that he happened to choose a line of work that does not require intensive interaction with laws and regulations. If you are truly creative and choose from a variety of fields outside of writing or other media, you rapidly bump into government interference. Your preferred business plan may well be impossible, or too risky for you personally, given the legal context. George has never in his life had to suffer from any of this to a great degree, so it's easy for him to sit back and be dogmatic when I try to point out the problems. He blames the victim. Shame on you George. Shayne

All you did was to post a link to a leftist site with a graph. If there was a point, other than the one on your head, you should have explained what it was. And if there are studies that show the relationship between government intervention and greater concentration of media ownership, then provide some links to those studies.

It's quite possible that there is such a relationship. But I haven't studied this area, so I don't know. And neither do you.

I am interested in sound theory and hard facts, not in what you can imagine.

Ghs

[sjw]

But I haven't studied this area, so I don't know.

That's the most accurate thing you've said so far. To make it more accurate: you have too little imagination to connect what you do know to what is depicted by the graph. And you're also too impertinent to have anyone else walk you through it. And perhaps, you're too old to really care one way or another -- after all, what difference is it to you if civilization falls to this kind of thing after you're gone, right?

And neither do you.

Wishful thinking.

I think there are at least a few people here besides me who, given what they already know, who could fill in some details for you. I don't have much interest in interacting with an impertinent foolish old man who sees only what he wants to see. You're emotionally committed to me being wrong about the connections here, and you'll twist any evidence I'd put forth. Let someone else suffer with your dogmatic behavior.

Shayne

- One neck ready for one leash.